Whatever flaws one may find with Red Bulls coach Juan Carlos Osorio, don’t say he’s afraid to make tough decisions. He proved that by benching his three big South American acquisitions for the most important games of the season, a call that helped his team stun two-time champion Houston in the Western Conference semis.

Juan Pablo Angel says Osorio deserves credit for the gutsy call to bench Jorge Rojas, Juan Pietravallo and Gabriel Cichero. But after the retirement of Claudio Reyna, sale of Jozy Altidore and suspension of Jeff Parke and Jon Conway, Osorio has been juggling like a circus performer all year but has the Red Bulls a win away from their first MLS Cup final.

“(Osorio) took over a team that’s been losing,” Angel said. “Then you have one of your Designated Players retiring, then arguably the best young player in this country was sold to Europe. Then towards the end of the year you have two guys suspended for performance-enhancing substances. So it hasn’t been easy.

“He brought in some players that had an immediate impact and helped win some very important matches. When they started not performing well Juan made a brave difficult decision of leaving them out of the last couple of games which were the most important games of this organization, and played with three young players (who) performed very well.

“Juan Carlos deserves a lot of credit.” Angel sat out practice Wednesday, as did midfielder Luke Sassano and defender Andrew Boyens, although all are expected to play at Real Salt Lake Saturday. Osorio spoke with Rojas, Pietravallo and Cichero after practice, spending extra time talking to the latter. But he acknowledged that after his tinkering, the back four he’s eventually settled on is finally doing the job.

“I’d think they’re more suitable to play against a more direct team (like Houston), but they’ve shown some consistency. That’s led me to maintain them as the starters, because in the past with different formations we’ve conceded too many goals,” Osorio said. “The work is paying off and they’re certainly doing really well. Plus the fact Danny (Cepero) has come and done the business for us (helps).

“Let’s not forget Luke has done a very good job in front of the back four, too. I’d say the big difference is the willingness of everybody to do the extra work. Lets not fool anybody, we have some offensive-minded players that like to go forward but they don’t like to do much on the way back. We’ve been reinforcing that responsibility and they took it on board and we’re doing very well as far as that.”

Osorio had preferred a 3-5-2, and had hoped Cichero would be the centerpiece of that back three. But the Venezuelan national team member had struggled mightily _ even worse than Rojas or Pietravallo _ and forced Osorio to scrap that formation for a 4-4-2 that has done well.

The back four of Boyens and Chris Leitch on the right and Diego Jimenez and Kevin Goldthwaite on the left has started five times, with the Red Bulls going 3-0-2 while outscoring their foes 10-2.

And as SBI pointed out, in games Cichero has played they’re 3-5 with a staggering 2.40 GAA (19 goals), but in games he hasn’t played (since joining the club) they’re 4-0-2 with a 0.50 (three goals). It really is that bad.

“The players that aren’t playing right now that came at the halfway point, they helped to get wins,” Osorio said. “Now we went back to a different starting lineup. That says a lot about what we do here on a daily basis. It’s hard to keep players in-form, especially those not playing on a daily basis; but we managed to change lines and still get the results.

“I didn’t hesitate to put (Sassano, Sinisa Ubiparipovic and F John Wolyniec) in the lineup when I thought it was needed. They offer different things: Luke his distribution, his commitment, Sinsa his ability to see the final pass and execute, John the work-rate he puts into every game. We’re very pleased with what they’ve done and hopefully they’ll continue doing so.”